[unrelated to Wormwood Hospital's story] Coming to terms with being Not A Girl

Understanding yourself can be a tricky thing. If you're anything like me, you find other people WAY more interesting, so you don't even bother to think about yourself. However, you will also find that certain questions will start to nag at you. 

How do I describe myself?
 

What programs do I want to take in college or university? 

Am I even a girl? 

Well, I definitely figured out that last one. Even if I can't fully put into words how my gender feels, I do know for a fact that I am non-binary. It took me a long time to finally get to this point, and I'm not even done yet. But, let's start with the process of how I got here...

[Disclaimer: the order of events may be slightly skewed from the truth, because memory is a finicky thing, and not very reliable. However, the general sentiment still applies, whether or not it's accurate to the millimeter.]

It starts in middle school. I still consider myself a girl, I don't know what trans people are really, nor am I aware that there are more pronouns than he/him and she/her. I used to be the type to make attack helicopter jokes ("I identify as a steamroller!" *proceeds to roll on the ground at high speeds*) because I found the concept of being an object funny, and I didn't understand what non-binary was. However, I did think of myself as a tomboy, and different from other girls. I was also struggling with internalized misogyny at the time, as I would for many years, but I never thought of the girls around me as lesser. I just didn't feel like I quite fit in with them.

Fast forward a couple years, I'm about to graduate middle school, and I have a much better understanding of transgenderism, even if it isn't much. At the very least, I understand that trans women are women, and trans men are men. I'm also introduced to the concept of non-binary people.

From then on until the tenth grade, I am more involved in the LGBTQ+ community, and I begin to understand the concept of abolishing gender roles more fully. I feel myself being attracted to the term non-binary, and I thought that meant I was sexually attracted to non-binary people- I felt perverted for it, as if I was fetishizing non-binary people because they were "exotic". I didn't even fathom that my own gender identity was the reason I liked the term, because I didn't experience heavy gender dysphoria. I thought I was attention-seeking and taking the spotlight away from "real" trans and non-binary people. For that reason, I tried my best to just ignore it and not think about my own identity. After all, I wasn't very interesting to myself.

However, I ended up with nothing else to think about, because around the mid-point of tenth grade, the pandemic hit. We were all stuck in quarantine, with nothing better to do than be with ourselves and the internet. So, came the start of my gender identity journey. This is around the time I started using "any" pronouns.

Just in case you don't feel like reading paragraphs, here's a general timeline of my gender identity and relationship with pronouns (the numbers are the grades I'm in at the time):

Art by me :]

Now, for a more detailed analysis of each year and phase:

she/her

This one I already pretty much explained. I didn't really think about gender a lot, and I still considered myself a tomboy girl.

any (pandemic has hit)

The kickstart to my gender identity journey. I was aware of pronouns and their importance, and I wanted to help normalize trans identities. In any case, I didn't feel a very strong connection to she/her pronouns, so I genuinely did not mind being called other pronouns.

she/they/he

I wanted to make it clear that I did care what pronouns were being used, so I changed it from "any" to something more specific. However, I had just begun experimenting, and I did (and still do) have a connection to femininity, so I wasn't quite ready to get rid of she/her.

they/he/she

This may not seem like a big difference, but putting the "she" at the end as opposed to the front signified that I had begun to distance myself from she/her pronouns. Although, I didn't want to get rid of them, because once again, I still felt connected to femininity, and I thought that I had to have she/her to represent that.

they/he

I get rid of she/her entirely. Even if I felt weird using he/him, I kept it in anyway, because I still felt a strong sense of gender sometimes, and they/them felt too passive, or neutral, to fully represent that.

they/he/it

Although it/its pronouns have technically existed for a very long time, very little times have they been used for humans, and almost never in a way that isn't demeaning. So, for a little while, I didn't quite understand why someone would use it/its. However, as more and more people with it/its began to pop up, I became more curious, and once I tried it myself, I found that I quite liked it! So I kept it. It also was the thing that made me more open to neopronouns, due to it being unconventional.

they/he/xe/it

I am paying more attention to myself and trying to build a relationship with myself. I discover that I actually do like neopronouns, and the reason I didn't want to use them before was the stigma surrounding them, and also that same feeling of "I am taking away the spotlight from real non-binary people." This was a big step forward. I chose xe/xer, because it still had that feminine sound to it (same ending as she/her), but it wasn't fully feminine.

they/it

I finally get rid of he/him, because I realize I don't quite identify with it. I also remove xe/xer, because as much as they helped me realize some things about myself, it still didn't fully land with me.

they/ve/it

I scour the internet, mainly reddit and tumblr, for neopronouns to use, and I stumble upon ve/vin/vis. It has a nice ring to it. I go onto a subreddit dedicated to trying out new names and pronouns (r/TransTryouts), and I find it really resonates with me, so I add it to my repertoire.

ve/it

For a short while, I got tired of people ignoring my neopronouns and only using they/them for me, so whenever I introduced myself I would omit they/them from my list of pronouns. I think at the time I was also feeling more strongly gendered, so they/them didn't sit with me as much as ve/it did.

ve/it/they/+other neopronouns

I came to terms with the fact that I do still like they/them, so I added it back. By this point, I had made up my mind that gender and pronouns are completely nonsensical, so I gave myself the luxury of messing around and using whatever silly things I could find that I liked, and put it on the list. If you're curious, my list of other neopronouns goes meow/wave/ghost/sun/moon/glow/rot. 

This is my current set of pronouns. I do have multiple genders, and I am also genderfluid. I identify as polyfluid, and all of my genders are non-binary. Some of them are related to feelings, some to colours, some to weather. At first glance, it may seem like I'm just trying to be special but...

Unfortunately, the original page with this flag and who made it was destroyed, so I don't really know who made it.

 If you think about it, if you ask a woman to describe why they are a woman, with adjectives and nouns, they might describe themself using "strong" or "sensitive" or "moon" or "flower" or whatever they associate their gender with. So, why can't I describe my own gender like that? Why can't I associate my gender with nouns and adjectives? If anything, I find it more straightforward to do so. 

The only reason I would consider calling myself a "girl" or "boy" is because of cisgender people. Non-binary individuals, especially those who use neopronouns, will often hear from other trans members, things like "cis people won't take us seriously because of you!" But really, when have cis people ever taken trans people seriously? Even at a time where non-binary people weren't even considered, binary transgenderism was seen as a crime. Cis people (transphobic ones, of course) are not going to influence how I feel about myself. I will not let someone who only thinks about their own comfort make me uncomfortable in my own skin.

That's why it's so important to form relationships and networks with people like you, and to hold people up to higher standards. If your so-called "friends" or "family" don't want to accept you for who you are, that is their issue. They are going to lose access to you, and that is not your fault. It will be painful, but it's necessary to find people who really love and support you.

I think queer people just tend to gravitate to one another anyway, whether they know they're queer at the time or not. I met a lot of my current friends when they identified as cishet, and also when I identified as cishet, and now 99% of my friends (and myself) are queer in some way. I can think of one singular person that I'm friends with who is completely cishet. A lot of them are online friends as well, so don't be afraid to use online spaces to branch out.

Remember, your safety and happiness should be your number one priority in your life. You don't have to come out to anyone you don't want to, and you don't have to deny yourself the ability to explore your gender identity. Take your time, you got this :]